Sections

Almost 2,000 Canadians held in foreign prisons

Kamila Talendibaeva, wife of Huseyin Celil, a Canadian citizen being held in a prison and serving a life sentence in a Chinese prison holds news conference on behalf her husband in Ottawa on April 26, 2007. The wife of a Canadian citizen who is serving a life sentence in China for speaking out on behalf of the country's Uighur minority says the Canadian government has all but forgotten about him.Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand

OTTAWA — From drug smuggling in Peru to attempted fraud in China to murder in the United States, federal statistics show more than 1,700 Canadians are languishing in foreign prisons and detentions centres around the world.

More than 70 per cent of Canadians held abroad as of July 9 were in the United States, though Canada was also represented in more than 50 other countries’ jails, prisons and detention centres.

At the same time, more than a quarter of those detained abroad were facing or doing time for drug-related charges.

Gar Pardy, former head of consular services at Foreign Affairs, said the vast majority of the cases would relate to drug smuggling, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Such was the case for three Canadian women arrested in the Dominican Republic in February on allegations they were being used as “mules” to carry cocaine to Canada.

In fact, Canadians appear to be a major presence in jails throughout the hemisphere.

“There’s hardly a place down there where you don’t find a bunch of Canadians,” Pardy said. “There are also a fair number of Canadians involved in the higher levels in drug trafficking.”

While Pardy was not surprised that 1,209 of the 1,712 Canadians held abroad were in the U.S., the 82 Canadians being detained in China is a marked increase over previous years.

Pardy attributed this to the fact commercial relations between the two countries are at an all-time high.

“Initially, if you had a dozen in China, that would be it,” he said. “Now more Canadians are going there. And I think what you’re finding is a lot more Chinese Canadians going there and setting up businesses.”

And while drug charges were the most common ones facing Canadians in many prisons around the world, fraud appears to be the main issue for Canadians in China.

“It’s very easy to get charged with fraud in China,” Pardy said. “A lot of them go and set up businesses and work with some local people. Then there are disagreements and the local people go to the police and the Canadians get detained until it gets worked out.”

While the U.S. and China ranked first and second in terms of the number of Canadians detained, the federal figures show Australia coming in third with 46 followed by Japan with 27.

Rounding out the top 10 were the United Kingdom with 24 detained Canadians, 20 in Peru, 16 in Jamaica, and 13 each in the Dominican Republic, Spain and Costa Rica.

For privacy reasons, the Foreign Affairs Department refused to identify specific countries in which there are one or two Canadians detained.

As a result, there were 46 jailed Canadians whose locations were not disclosed.

Of the total 1,712 detained, 637 were charged with drug-related offences, 198 with murder and 161 with fraud.

Foreign Affairs refuses to discuss specific cases due to privacy concerns, but there are always a number of ongoing, politically-sensitive consular cases involving Canadians detained abroad.

One is that of Huseyin Celil, who is serving a life sentence in China for advocating on behalf of the country’s Uighur minority.

Meanwhile, a 29-year-old man, Naser al-Raas, was detained in the Middle Eastern country of Bahrain for nearly a year after participating in pro-democracy protests.

He was freed after federal government lobbying.

Foreign Affairs warns Canadians travelling abroad that they are subject to the laws of the country in which they are arrested, and that the federal government can’t always be expected to intervene on their behalf.